Here ya go.... the upside is - i put just as much faith in the drivel you posted as i do the drivel i am posting here. in otherwords - Nada.
According to the Gallup Organization, "Very religious Americans are more likely to practice healthy behaviors than those who are moderately religious or nonreligious."[3]
Gallup declared concerning the study which measured the degree to which religiosity affects health practices: "Generalized linear model analysis was used to estimate marginal scores all five reported metrics after controlling for age (in years), gender, race/ethnicity, marital status, education (number of years), log of income, and region of the country... Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index survey Jan. 2-July 28, 2010, with a random sample of 554,066 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, selected using random-digit-dial sampling."[4]
The Gallup study gives some insight into the above average health habits of the very religious and not necessarily the health habits of atheists. The reason is that the Gallup organization defines a non-religious as a person where "Religion is not an important part of daily life and church/synagogue/mosque attendance occurs seldom or never. This group constitutes 29.7% of the adult population."[5] While many Western atheists are non-religious, not all non-religious people are atheists.
Gallup further declares:
“ | Very religious Americans make healthier choices than their moderately religious and nonreligious counterparts across all four of the Healthy Behavior Index metrics, including smoking, healthy eating, and regular exercise. Smoking is one area of particular differentiation between the very religious and less religious Americans, with the nonreligious 85% more likely to be smokers than those who are very religious.[6] | ” |
From a medical perspective, an obese person has accumulated enough body fat that it can have a negative effect on their health. If a person's weight is at least 20% higher than it should be, he/she is generally considered obese. If your Body Mass Index (BMI) is between 25 and 29.9 you are considered overweight. If your BMI is 30 or over you are considered obese.[7] The term obese can also used in a more general way to indicate someone who is overweight.[8]
Two of the major risk factors for becoming obese according to the Mayo Clinic are poor dietary choices and inactivity, thus given the above cited Gallup research, it appears as if non-religious are more prone to becoming obese than very religious individuals.[9] The Bible declares that gluttony is a sin.[10] Furthermore, the Bible declares the physical body of Christians to be temples of the Holy Spirit.[11] Another example of strongly held religious beliefs affecting behavior in terms of the avoidance of sins and health problems is that religious upbringing and culture affects rates of homosexuality and there are a number of diseases which homosexuals have higher incidences of. For example, homosexuality is rare among Orthodox Jews and even the liberal researcher Alfred Kinsey noted the rarity of homosexuality within the Orthodox Jewish community.[12] Therefore, it is not surprising that many very religious Christians and other religious groups which incorporate healthy beliefs and practices within their religion would leave healthier lives.
Obesity is positively associated with impulsiveness, lower self-discipline and neuroticism.[13][14][15] In addition, many people overeat in response to negative emotions such as depression, anger, anxiety and boredom.[16][17][18]
Concerning atheism and mental and physical health, there is considerable amount of scientific evidence that suggest that theism is more conducive to mental and physical health than atheism (For more information, please see: Psychology, obesity, religiosity and atheism). In the journal article Religion, self-regulation, and self-control: Associations, explanations, and implications psychologists McCullough and Willoughby theorize that many of the positive links of religiousness with health and social behavior may be caused by religion's beneficial influences on self-control/self-regulation.[22][23]
Christianity is the world's largest religion and it has seen tremendous growth over its 2000 year history.[24] In the last fifty years, Christianity has recently seen explosive growth outside the Western World.[25][26][27][28] In 2000, there were twice as many non-Western Christians as Western Christians.[29] In 2005, there were four times as many non-Western Christians as there were Western Christians.[30] Of course, a big reason for the explosive growth of Christianity outside the Western world was due to highly religious people propagating the Christian faith and there are now more non-Western missionaries than Western missionaries.[31] Besides non-Westerners often being less sedentary, non-Western diets are often healthier than the diets Westerners consume and there is significantly less obesity in those non-Western cultures.[32][33][34] Therefore, in recent history Christendom has seen a large influx of very religious people who live healthy lifestyles and have low levels of obesity.
See? just like yours..... total horsemuffins.
I also found one that links atheism to cancer.... but that was so stupid i couldn't even go there.